College of Education student employees win Student Employee of the Year

Student Employee of the Year (SEOTY) winners Brittany Supnet and Jordan Wang.

UH Mānoa College of Education (COE) student employees are Student Employee of the Year (SEOTY) winners. Jordan Wang and Brittany Supnet were nominated and won as a team for their work in the Curriculum Research & Development Group (CRDG) Teaching Science as Inquiry (TSI) program. Three other COE student employees were nominated individually: Sheri Chong, Christine Kajiwara, and Charna Underwood.

Wang, a 2012 UH Mānoa Presidential Scholarship recipient, has worked for CRDG since 2010. Supnet joined the group over a year ago. They are responsible for ordering and organizing the supplies for the TSI program, which has facilitated more than 30 science teacher professional development workshops for 70 teachers across the State of Hawaiʻi over the past two years.

Additionally, Wang and Supnet manage fiscal paperwork and procedures, assist with the writing and distribution of TSI workshop contracts, and serve as liaisons between the project and participating schools. As a result of their quality work and collaboration, they have played an increasingly important role in curriculum and research aspects of the program.

“The members of the entire TSI team are continually impressed with Jordan and Brittany’s reliability, independence, and leadership,” said TSI Program Manager Joanna Philippoff. “We would not be as successful, efficient, or organized without their hard work, dedication, and valuable contributions.”

Sheri Chong, also of CRDG, has worked in Marketing and Publication Services (MaPS) for more than a year. Her responsibilities have rapidly grown beyond clerical and fiscal paperwork to include market research, graphic design and layout assistance, file archiving, and publications conversion to e-formats. Chong’s supervisor and MaPS associate, Alycia Fujii, said, “Sheri is possibly one of the smartest and hardest working student help we've ever had. We trust her implicitly to complete any job she's given, correctly and quickly.”

Christine Kajiwara has been a part of the COE Dean’s Office for the past year. She serves as the sole student employee for 10 faculty and staff members who enlist her assistance on a multitude of projects. “She goes above and beyond the daily responsibilities that are typical of her position, which is why the faculty and staff so readily give her tasks that require a lot of attention to detail and critical thinking,” said Communications Coordinator Jennifer Parks.

Charna Underwood began working in the Department of Educational Technology in 2011 as an office aide and was promoted within a year. She streamlined the department’s database, improving spreadsheets, reports, applications, and program files. “She is so dependable that I feel comfortable during my absence from the main office,” said Department Secretary Bev Suemoto. “She has been so far the best student assistant I have had in my 40+ years of service at the UHM.”

SEOTY has been recognizing outstanding student employees at UH Mānoa for twenty-seven years. Finalists and winners are awarded scholarships and other prizes. The individual winner is eligible to compete at the state, regional, and national levels.